The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology has just published on OnlineFirst an article by Jacqui Horan (Melbourne) and Mark Israel (AHRECS) called ‘Beyond the Legal Barrier: Institutional Gate-keeping and Real Jury Research’. Although its connection to research ethics may not be immediately obvious, we look at the reasons why so little empirical research is conducted on real juries in common law countries. While many jurisdictions seem to believe that jury secrecy laws form the major hurdle, we point out that even where research on real juries is legal (such as Australia), many courts, government justice departments and criminal justice agencies have their own complicated research and research ethics approval processes. As a result, even in those jurisdictions where there are no legal impediments to their work, institutional gate-keeping has kept jury researchers at bay. Consequently, debates about jury reform are often driven by scandal rather than properly informed empirical research.

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology
OnlineFirst articles for the period 23 March 2015 to 31 March 2015
Article
Beyond the legal barriers: Institutional gatekeeping and real jury research
Jacqueline Horan and Mark Israel

http://anj.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/30/0004865815577768?papetoc

This blog may be cited as:
Israel, M (2015, 3 June) Research Ethics as Gatekeeping in Justice Institutions. AHRECS Blog. Retrieved from https://ahrecs.com/human-research-ethics/research-ethics-gatekeeping-justice-institutions